Despite the Dumb Exterior
by saku-chan2
Summary: Read 2 see...fine, i'll tell you, its about someone who isnt realy as he seems hahaha did that help?? plz review and be nice, me first fic


~Despite the Dumb Exterior~  
  
Guess who I am? Nobody knows of my secrets, no one knows of my special abilities, no one knows of my brilliance, and nobody, not anybody, not even my grandmamma knows of my incredible ability to act and no one knows of my double life.  
  
My name is Neville Longbottom. To everyone at school, I am noted as the kindly, clumsy, oaf of a fool at the bottom of the class and a pitiful excuse for a wizard, whose abilities barely beat that of a squib. Its amazing to many of my peers that I'm in Gryffindor, sure, both my parents were in there, but they were brilliant, they were brave, and they fought with fearless audacity against the utmost evil.  
  
But because of their skillfulness, loyalty, and brilliance, they received attention. They became two of the best aurors in the ministry and two of the top ten torture targets of Lord Voldemort and his death eaters. What life had to give to them was given to them in the first twenty five years of life including the birth of myself in their last two years of sanity.  
  
You would think my grandmamma would surely have known her grandson inside and out considering she had raised me for nearly my entire life, but she didn't. I wasn't always a fool to everyone I met, for the first four years of my life, I was incredibly keen on the details on why my parents had gone insane.  
  
It hurt me so just to hear of all the torture they had been through and all the pain they had suffered. The worst part of their insanity is that they don't even recognize who I am and that is what hurt me the most.  
  
I was a miserable child, and for days after visiting my parents every month, I would sit in my playroom thinking about their faces, their actions in comparison to their facial expressions and actions in some old pictures I always used to look at.  
  
I guess it must have been awfully silly of me, but I suddenly became very aware that the people who had died the most during the dark lord's reign of terror were those of immense intellectual capacity. Those who were smart were often killed if they did not consent to the dark lord's wishes. It seemed to me Lord Voldemort was more interested in smart and talented people rather then those of meager abilities. When I asked my grandmother if the dark lord had really gone for good, she had replied, that she wasn't sure, but that she was sure he was for now or was bidding his time. It was then that I decided I would never try to be smart or attract attention for being talented, the less graceful and brilliant I was, the better, people thought lowly of me, but they never bothered me since while I was dumb I was as my nature really is, kind.  
  
No one can really judge a small child from his looks, nobody judged me at least. They all thought I was an adorable child, which was expected being the son of the beautiful Adeline and handsome Frank Longbottom. But, beauty also has its costs, and I wanted none of that. I resembled my mother in a sense except with a more masculine approach, I had dark brown wavy curls and pale skin like my mother and facial features like my father including gray eyes. I decided to alter my features to look somewhat like my Great Uncle Barney who had long since passed away but not forgotten.  
  
No one noticed of course, which was good since I carefully did the changes slowly in a way that was unnoticeable. My face became round along with my body, I had freckles splashed across my face, my hair became strait, and my eyes were charmed to look dumbly innocent, over all, I made myself into the perfect image of an unconfident little kid. My grandma and my other relatives barely noticed a thing, except of my incredible resemblance to Uncle Barney which they whispered in secret was all such a pity, since he seemed to be a dud in the long line of beauty in the Longbottom line. As for my brilliance, I purposely bumped my head into a table one day which supposedly resulted in defecting my learning abilities for the rest of my life.  
  
My plan to be unnoticed was perfectly flawless, no one ever suspected and no one ever knew. I would have no problems, at least I hoped so.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
. "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." What a horrible lie.  
  
*******"Did you see his face, the great lump?"  
  
"fat little crybaby"  
  
"If brains were money, Longbottom here, would be as poor as you Weasly."  
  
"Incompetent fool"  
  
"Clumsy idiot"  
  
"who'd want to go with him"*******  
  
It wasn't supposed to bother him. It really wasn't supposed to. Neville had thought he'd be able to handle insults especially insults that weren't really true. It was a lie, wasn't it? He understood everything that was taught to him, but had decided to play dumb in all his classes except Herbology, which he couldn't help but excel at because of his extreme liking for the subject. For the last six years at Hogwarts, Neville had dealt with these kinds of insults nearly everyday of his school life. Neville had incredible endurance and it wasn't until time two months had passed in his seven year, that he began to question his choice, but he did not change it quite yet.  
  
The infamous Draco Malfoy and Professor Severus Snape were the worst of all his bullies. It seemed neither of them could get enough out of making fun of him or criticizing him in every way possible. Malfoy was the epitome of popular jack ass jocks with silvery blonde hair, pale grayish bluish eyes, a handsome face, top grades (second only to Hermione Granger), and a typical notorious Slytherin reputation.  
  
Snape was even worse than Malfoy sometimes, his greasy head, yellow teeth, and smelly breath was always in Neville's face yelling at him for messing up in potions. People had gotten the idea Neville was frightened of Snape because of his temper, but in reality, Neville feared the stench of his incredibly horrid smelling breath which always made Neville a little woozy and even clumsier then he had meant to be.  
  
The rest of the Slytherins were pretty bad too, but not everyone was that mean to him.  
  
The famous and noble Harry Potter was kind to him and so was his best friends Ron Weasly and Hermione Granger. They were like all the other Gryffindors, courageous and willing to help and defend him in any cause against Slytherin.  
  
Despite Neville's high respect and admiration of Harry Potter and Ron Weasly, he was especially fond of Hermione.  
  
She was top student of their year and was always by his side tutoring him and prompting him to do better in school. She was beautiful too though no one ever noticed it since her brainy know-it-all personality, bushy brown hair, and books always seemed to cover it all up. But Neville noticed her beauty when no one else did. She was truly good inside and out, a bit of a temper when dealing with her best friend Ron, but other than that she was perfect.  
  
Neville had always believed she was in all honesty not a shallow person in the slightest. Sure, she did recognize beauty in such figures such as Gilderoy Lockhart and Cedric Diggory, but she did not really like them in that way, a childish crush on Lockhart, but that was all.  
  
He had never had the courage to ask her out or the chance either that it until the Yule Ball in fourth year. He had decided to finally summon up his courage and ask her. But, in the end, he had been rejected, he was hurt of course, but he didn't say anything. Victor Krum, the famous Quidditch player had won her hand to the ball and Neville ended up going with Ginny Weasly, Ron's little sister, was well known to nearly everyone for her giant crush on Harry Potter. She was pretty also and truly kind inside, but was no good in hiding her emotions because during their entire time at the Yule Ball, Ginny was too busy looking over his shoulder at Harry rather than pay the slightest attention at him.  
  
Life was cruel.  
  
****** Potions, his least favorite class was starting. Neville sighed miserably but smiled slightly as he sat down next to Hermione who had given him an encouraging smile.  
  
The dungeon was cold as it usually was as Professor Snape swept into class with a nasty look on his face which became if possible even nastier when his eyes landed on Neville and Harry.  
  
It was going to be another horrible period. Even more horrible than Neville would have ever suspected.  
  
"Today we are going to brew a special kind of potion known as the Revelation Potion. It is an especially difficult potion to brew so I suggest you incompetent fools pay attention for one, especially you Longbottom, your grades are bad enough without you hurting yourself over messed up potions" Professor Snape said quietly with a sneer on his face.  
  
The Slytherins snickered as usual while the Gryffindors either gave him sympathetic looks or hard glares at Snape.  
  
"The Revelation Potion will reveal any secret charm placed on any magically enchanted object and if brewed incorrectly in the slightest way will cause immediate trouble to anyone exposed to it, now to begin the potion you need a cup of mandrake saliva, two teaspoons of dried dragon blood.  
  
Neville sighed as he prepared to brew the potion, Hermione was already quietly whispering instructions to him as he did his best as his acting would allow to follow them. After twenty minutes of careful stirring and measuring, Neville had finished his potion along with the rest of the class. Snape was busy sweeping around the classroom criticizing everyone's potion . He turned to talk to Hermione when quite suddenly he felt a warm liquid splash all over his robes.  
  
He looked up in horror at Malfoy, the obvious culprit who was smirking at him. Professor Snape immediately started yelling at him at his face when quite suddenly he stopped and stared at Neville along with the rest of the class.  
  
Neville was feeling quite funny as the potion soaked through his skin, his vision blurred while he wondering what in the world he done this time to the potion to make him feel so weird. He felt oddly light and nauseated as the potion began to do its job.  
  
To the class they were at first unsurprised at a thoroughly potion soaked round faced Neville Longbottom getting in trouble with Snape, but when quite suddenly Neville's physical features began to change rapidly.  
  
At first he was quite the same, round faced, chubby boy, hideous buck teeth and stocky stature. But quite suddenly his round face began to thin out and his flat hair began to curl, and his eyes began to change shades. His body began to grow taller and thinner, though not too thin, with the slender masculine body. By the time potion had finished his job, Neville Longbottom, the fat boy was no more and in his place stood a tall and firm statured slender boy with perfectly chiseled features, dark blackish brownish wavy curls, and sparkling gray eyes, the true child of Adeline and Frank Longbottom.  
  
Neville blinked as his vision cleared, he looked up in surprise to find Professor Snape staring at him with jaw dropped open along with the rest of the class.  
  
He was confused for a second and looked over at Hermione's warm brown eyes which were at the moments staring at him in amazement, then he saw what she saw, she had quickly drawn up a mirror and put it in front of him, himself as he had not seen himself for nearly thirteen years but had imagined and known for some reason quite well.  
  
He stumbled back. He gasped, "No.it can't be" Neville looked around in horror as he realized the entire class was gawking at him.  
  
He backed away, turned and shoved Snape out of his way as he tore out of the classroom running.  
  
*****hehe, urm, I know it has a lot of holes that needing filling up, but I was too impatient.anyways plz review..hp is not mine and by all means belong to J.K Rowling except for perhaps the plot. Suggest anything please. 


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